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Volkswagen CEO's Speech to Workers Drowned Out By Boos After He Says Company 'Isn't Operating in a Fantasy World' (www.latintimes.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The carmaker has been in heated discussions with unions after announcing this fall that it would have to take drastic measures to cut costs

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wait what I thought VAG was unprofitable and has been for a while?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not unprofitable.

They just set impossible profit expectations and doing everything to reach them to keep shareholders happy.

So even if they are making record profits, they're still not meeting the expectations they set. And that's bad for investors.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I checked and they have over 200 billion in debt. The debt has been steadily growing since 2008 so no wonder someone wants see results. If they stop innovating and taking debt they most likely die so it’s not a good situation to be in.

[–] sylver_dragon 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Based on their Q3 2024 Financial Report (p. 23):

The Volkswagen Group generated sales revenue of €237.3 (235.1) billion in the period from January to September 2024.

The Volkswagen Group’s operating result amounted to €12.9 (16.2) billion in the first nine months of 2024. The operating return on sales was 5.4 (6.9)%.

So ya, they are plenty profitable. The line just isn't going up this year. Time to cut jobs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

https://companiesmarketcap.com/volkswagen/total-debt/

Sales slowing and “Total debt on the balance sheet as of September 2024 : $219.94 Billion USD”

I don’t think the point of negative profit isn’t too far with these numbers, especially if sales keep going down. They keep taking on more debt than they make profit for many years.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

What are you talking about? Over the last 10 years, there was only one year when they weren't profitable (2015, 1.58 billion euros loss after they had to defer more then 16 billion euros because of their diesel shenanigans), every other year they were making billions. In fact, only in '16 and '20 were they "only" in the single digit billions, the remaining 7 years they made 10+ billions in profit, with the most recent year '23 being a record year in both, revenue (322 billion euros) and profit (16 billion euros).

Their debt is being paid and then some. This is not an issue.